A natural shift to stronger warm El Niño events in the Pacific Ocean might be responsible for a substantial portion of the global warming recorded during the past 50 years, according to new research at UAH. "Our modeling shows that natural climate cycles explain at least part of the ocean warming we've seen since the 1950s," said Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist in UAH's Earth System Science Center and the new study's lead author. "But we also found that because the globe has had more frequent La Niña cooling events in the past 10 or 15 years, they are canceling out some of the effects of global warming." The paper detailing this research, "The Role of ENSO in Global Ocean Temperature Changes During 1955-2011 Simulated with a 1D Climate Model," is scheduled for publication in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Science, and is available online at: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13143-014-0011-z.